› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Airbnb and holiday lets › Anti-Airbnb by-laws binned › Current Page
@c_mcph said:
“The local council ‘owns’ the zoning regulation”Gee, that’s pretty much what you shot me down for saying on this site abut 5 months ago! You said the councils said they didn’t want to do the regulation… to which I replied that it didn’t matter. It is their job!
Yes I did – but I think my response was that they weren’t doing their job so you had to find another way.
Looking back at the discussion, you criticised me in a series of posts for not including council action in an article I had written about what was being considered by government as the way forward for dealing with the spread of holiday letting.
It’s worth noting in the Fair Trading comment the phrase “Legislative regulations … can only be enforced by and at the discretion of the relevant authority …”(my emphasis).
In other words, it’s up to the councils whether they do anything or not. they can’t be forced to enforce their zoning and most choose not to do so. For instance, we know for a fact that CoS has stopped taking calls about the blatant breaches of zoning at one notorious building in the city.
In my ring-around of the councils most affected by holiday lets, City of Sydney – which has the most apartments – had only five cases in the past year or so (they said), Randwick had none but Waverley, right next door, had 10 a week.
Mosman had even openly decided not to pursue breaches of zoning by short-term letting unless they constituted a threat to health and safety.
So nothing has changed and I will bet you a bowl of pasta and a glass of red at the Tropicana that leaving it up to councils to police will not be the favoured option proposed by the government if and when legislation finally is tabled.
In any case, I think we may not have heard the last of this. If, as Fair Trading says, councils are the only body that can police zoning breaches, then someone should be telling them to get their finger out .
Or, if apickles is right (Item 4), perhaps someone should run a test case all the way to the Supreme Court to establish a precedent.